Friday Notes: The IKEA Effect
For the past several months, I've been ending each workweek by writing a short Friday note to my team. Sometimes they're funny. Sometimes reflective. They're usually sparked by something small that happened during the week and the unexpected lesson that followed. It occurred to me recently that they belong here too.
Last weekend I caught myself sitting on my couch thinking about something I hadn’t thought about in a while: assembling all my Amazon furniture when I first moved into my condo four months ago.
Now before anyone pictures me as naturally handy, let me remind you that this involved a living room full of flat-packed boxes, instructions that somehow made things less clear, and several moments where I was fully convinced I had either skipped a step or accidentally invented a new one.
The entertainment center was especially ambitious. The couch arrived in more pieces than felt necessary for any normal human experience. There were mystery screws, backwards panels, and at least one point where I sat on the floor staring at the instructions like we were in a standoff. But eventually, piece by piece, it all came together.
And I still remember the feeling that first night I finally sat down. Exhausted. Surrounded by cardboard boxes and slightly crooked furniture. But so proud of it all. Not because it was perfect. Because something that had once felt scattered and unfinished had slowly started becoming home.
Apparently, there’s actually a name for this: the IKEA Effect. The idea that people value things more when they’ve helped build them themselves.
I get it now.
For some reason, that came back to me this week. Maybe because the longer I’m here, the more I realize meaningful things rarely come together all at once.
Teams don’t.
Relationships don’t.
Trust doesn’t.
It happens conversation by conversation, challenge by challenge, adjustment by adjustment. And then one day you look around and realize something has quietly taken shape while everyone was busy doing the work.
Lately, I’ve been noticing that more and more. The way people support one another. The way things keep moving forward even on busy days. The care people quietly bring to their work without needing recognition every five minutes for it. A lot of good things are being built every day, even if they don’t always announce themselves in the moment.
And honestly...
That feels a little like finally sitting down on the couch after months of boxes everywhere and realizing:
This place is starting to feel like home.
